~~~ Just rambles to help me work through change ~~~
I am not ready for fall. I am not ready for trees in charisma of oranges or yellows. I'm not ready for fireplaces or blankets or s'mores on the hearth. I'm not ready for pumpkin lattes or sweatshirts or football. I'm not ready for fall.
I'm not ready for change.
Fall for me is different, this year. Fall to me is big changes, swirling changes. Fall to me is letting go. Letting go of summer. Letting go of my baby as a baby. Letting go of my home. Letting go of the last that was established when I was a "me" rather than "we."
This fall, for me, is letting go. But my heart isn't ready to release to change.
My baby will crawl this fall. She is animated and energetic and alive and squirmy. Her legs kicking against the air, her arms writhing agains the floor. She's ready to go. But mommy is not.
My home was mine, as a single. The last piece of what I did, as me. Financially. The last bit of pride in my work, my money management, my stake in providing. Moving means letting go completely of that. Of being provided for without anything financial to show.
Moving means letting go of the last piece of when I was decorating for me, and only me. Slowly that was chiseled, when I married, when Camilla came. So what was my "perfectly decorated cottage-style" home, is now a mesh of whites and dark woods, painted chests and bronzed antiques. Its partially me, but not fully. And moving means decorating with us three in mind, not just me. But finding a way to blend my cottage-style with Mark's style with babies running in the house... And I've a brain block, heart block, and just can't seem to formulate a new me-style with a new us-house to create a beautiful, homey, welcoming, airy we-home. Letting go.
Fall seems to take dreams and the fullness of life and put it under wraps and hibernate all the energy of summer.
Without teaching, without schools and kids buzzing and schedules formulating and bells ringing, that energy that could-be fall instead feels damp and heavy outside my home.
I like summer. I like beaches. I like water. I like walks and flowers and green trees and the colors of white and yellow and green and pink bursting everywhere in and outside my windows.
But fall looms upon me. Its changing tide unyielding to my resistence, my protest.
And change will come. It does come. And someday I will find myself in our new home, under a blanket, snuggled with my husband on our couch, drinking red wine or hot coffee or brewed tea, with our baby crawling at our feet. And I'll be okay. I'll be a home with my three.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Women's Work.
I think of them, all huddled in dirt-made houses, caves, and kingdoms. Ancient ruins today but alive and bustling in B.C. I think of them listening, hurting, hugging, nursing, and loving their little ones. Trading shifts and jobs and arms and tasks as new little bundles come and grow throughout the years. Generations of women doing generations of women's work. Loving each other. Being community. Being there. Being real. Being alive and active and serving in eachother's lives.
I think of me, sitting alone at my computer, parking lot outside empty of cars and people, all void to home to keep up with the hustle. Independent. Just me and google. A phone. A computer. A car. A network of women, all scattered away.
I think of them holding, wet nursing the newest little pudge of wrinkle, mama's cooing and on-looking, waiting to see and hold or snuggle. I think of them, some resting in Red Tents, the struggle of womanhood amongst women. I envision great-grandma watching toddlers chase quail while bigger kids hear the distant matriarch voices lingering beyond.
I think of my woman, most moved away from family, longing for mentors and friends and women. Searching for women who help them, care for them, nurture them, mature them. Pining for peers to be colleagues in motherhood and womanhood. Scrambling to search engines and books for insight on babies. Needing women.
We used to do this together. We used to be women, with women, doing women's work. We used to be in community, exchanging aged wisdom and raising our homes and babies together.
Titus 2 is speaks of older women teaching women about womanhood, about the home, about mothering. I can't help but wonder how different those B.C. and early A.D. cultures are from our postmodern days.
Is there a holy longing back for this, or is it just me? For mothers, mothering in the context of community, in the surrounding of generations. For women together, doing women's work.
Words associated with young mothering -- lonely, anxious, exhausting -- would look so different in the context of years gone by. Possibly even eliminated. Could they even be replaced with the images of gathered women? Women sharing the joy and burden of motherhood with the context of generations and divided tasks and physical presence?
Oh, surely, there is much to be woad. I know that. The romantic vision of it in my head probably needs the proper balance of the B.C. mothers wanting to shut out advice, shun a relative, or find silence during naptime instead of participate in the hub-bub around, but still...
I think something changes for women, for mothers, when this context has community. When their life has a circle, a knitting of those committed and communing.
Perhaps it can be done. Perhaps it just takes a few women, committing to a few women, and growing their women together. Perhaps it's just putting feet to Titus 2. Perhaps it's just holding babies and making meals and showing hospitality and stepping in, and being willing to be stepped in to. Being women, with women.
~~~
I can't help but feel a deep, engrained longing for this beautiful community. It draws such attention to what I had and what I left, back home with family. Like the Barlow Lake Day my Smith Aunts grabbed Camilla from her carseat and held her all day, loving me in such a way... Now that is holy longing. And a blessed giving.
~~
And a little PS -- this blog is NOT about gender roles or women in the work place or men staying home. Its about hearts and life and community, and me, right now.
I think of me, sitting alone at my computer, parking lot outside empty of cars and people, all void to home to keep up with the hustle. Independent. Just me and google. A phone. A computer. A car. A network of women, all scattered away.
I think of them holding, wet nursing the newest little pudge of wrinkle, mama's cooing and on-looking, waiting to see and hold or snuggle. I think of them, some resting in Red Tents, the struggle of womanhood amongst women. I envision great-grandma watching toddlers chase quail while bigger kids hear the distant matriarch voices lingering beyond.
I think of my woman, most moved away from family, longing for mentors and friends and women. Searching for women who help them, care for them, nurture them, mature them. Pining for peers to be colleagues in motherhood and womanhood. Scrambling to search engines and books for insight on babies. Needing women.
We used to do this together. We used to be women, with women, doing women's work. We used to be in community, exchanging aged wisdom and raising our homes and babies together.
Titus 2 is speaks of older women teaching women about womanhood, about the home, about mothering. I can't help but wonder how different those B.C. and early A.D. cultures are from our postmodern days.
Is there a holy longing back for this, or is it just me? For mothers, mothering in the context of community, in the surrounding of generations. For women together, doing women's work.
Words associated with young mothering -- lonely, anxious, exhausting -- would look so different in the context of years gone by. Possibly even eliminated. Could they even be replaced with the images of gathered women? Women sharing the joy and burden of motherhood with the context of generations and divided tasks and physical presence?
Oh, surely, there is much to be woad. I know that. The romantic vision of it in my head probably needs the proper balance of the B.C. mothers wanting to shut out advice, shun a relative, or find silence during naptime instead of participate in the hub-bub around, but still...
I think something changes for women, for mothers, when this context has community. When their life has a circle, a knitting of those committed and communing.
Perhaps it can be done. Perhaps it just takes a few women, committing to a few women, and growing their women together. Perhaps it's just putting feet to Titus 2. Perhaps it's just holding babies and making meals and showing hospitality and stepping in, and being willing to be stepped in to. Being women, with women.
~~~
I can't help but feel a deep, engrained longing for this beautiful community. It draws such attention to what I had and what I left, back home with family. Like the Barlow Lake Day my Smith Aunts grabbed Camilla from her carseat and held her all day, loving me in such a way... Now that is holy longing. And a blessed giving.
~~
And a little PS -- this blog is NOT about gender roles or women in the work place or men staying home. Its about hearts and life and community, and me, right now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)